Roasted Meatloaf S1 E5 - On New Year's Day (Newgrounds Edition)E

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This is the fifth episode of Roasted Meatloaf, originally made in 2022, marking a three year gap after the previous episode. The original production behind this episode was very complicated, though weirdly this version was much easier to adapt in some respects than the previous episode's adaptation.

This episode marked an art shift in the series, relying much more on Inkscape than GIMP. Initially, GIMP wasn't going to be involved at all, but then there were some issues I had to fix that were a bit complicated to fix in Inkscape so I used GIMP to help (I had gotten GIMP back on my computer by this point.) One problem with the art style here in my opinion is that a lot of things don't really have as much texture as they might have had before. It has a more flat feel. Nonetheless, I guess it was good to play around with what Inkscape could do. Both GIMP and Inkscape would continue to be used for later episodes.

I did a bit of chroma key/green screen experimentation in this episode. I sort of did that in the previous episode, except not as successfully. I initially wanted to use green screen for the part where Jeff is on the TV in that episode but ultimately I just poorly composited the clip over top of it. In this episode, however, I managed to rather efficiently use green screen to put in two vehicles.

Another thing I experimented with were the transition effects available from Pitivi. Only two transitions really appear, but nonetheless they were fun to play with I guess.

Characters from previous episodes make some cameos as extras in a crowd, albeit most of them in a redesigned Inkscape form. Some other extras are subtle pastiches of characters from pop culture, although one or two of them were ultimately altered a bit as to not look too similar to what they were referencing. Copyright/right of publicity concerns got to me a little bit again.

Speaking of copyright, the only sound I really had to change in this production was the "wee" sound, which, like in the other episodes, was originally a different "wee" sound with a conflicting license. Pretty much all the other sounds were fine.

Exporting was a slightly bigger obstacle. Like the previous episode, when I exported through Clipchamp it resulted in some weird graininess in some parts. Again, I had to employ the help of Blender's video editor to get a cleaner result.

Pitivi was used for the bulk of original production, but there might have been a bit of OpenShot involvement as well. I decided to include it in the credits just in case.

A few different screen recorders were involved in the animation process. One of them was recordMyDesktop, which I had used in the previous episodes, but others included Deepin Screen Recorder, Peek, and VLC's built-in recorder. I think I lost access to recordMyDesktop at some point in production which explains why this occurred. recordMyDesktop would ultimately be retired from usage in later episodes as I moved towards new and better tools for making animation.

The card that honors people who have died in recent years originally listed some names of notable people, but I ultimately removed the names because I felt like it wasn't necessary to elevate anyone above everyone else. One extra who appears is based on the Rush drummer Neil Peart, who had died in 2020. Originally he was going to be a pseudo-Force ghost in reference to one tribute I saw that was an edit of a Return of the Jedi frame, but ultimately I decided that might be taken the wrong way and seen as poor taste so instead I made him a guy who plays drums (the sound for which I made using Online Sequencer.) Neil had a mustache at one point so that's why the guy has a mustache; he was sort of a conglomeration of Neil's appearances in life so as to not realistically resemble him too much (due to potential publicity rights concerns.) The WHAT News broadcast also contains a small reference to Rush as another tribute.

The WHAT News anchor is voiced by my dad, who is credited under a pseudonym. He also has connections with the band that created the outro song, hence its usage.

Well, that's all I'll say for now. Hope you enjoy, but it's okay if you don't.